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CORRUPTION fighter Tony Fitzgerald QC warned last year that Queensland was sliding back to its “dark past”.

The man who ran the state’s last corruption inquiry 20 years ago marked its anniversary by claiming that “access can now be purchased, patronage is dispensed, mates and supporters are appointed and retired politicians exploit their connections to obtain ‘success fees’ for deals between business and government”.

Move forward 12 months and we have the daughter of jailed former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall warning that her father had nothing to lose if called to explain himself before the bar of the parliament.

“People in glass houses should not be throwing stones. I’m sure there are a lot of stories that can be told about certain members of parliament,” Mr Nuttall’s daughter Lisa Adams told journalists on the weekend. “I think they should be very, very careful. I’m absolutely sure there are other people in there who have done the wrong thing and have been protected or been able to slip under the radar.”

Premier Anna Bligh may dismiss the threat as the talk of a family that has been through a lot.

Opposition Leader John Paul Langbroek thinks otherwise.

He has called on the Premier to seek statements from her ministers detailing “every cash-for-access function, every meeting and every donation that each minister had been involved in or benefited from with Brendan McKennariey or any of his associated businesses”.

Mr McKennariey is the man who bribed Mr Nuttall $152,000 to secure $3.6 million in government contracts. Ken Talbot, who paid Mr Nuttall $360,000, died in a plane crash this year.

Ms Bligh has typically dismissed the challenge, claiming she has no need for assurances from her ministers. “I challenge Mr Langbroek to take a complaint to the CMC,” she said.

The Crime and Misconduct Commission though is also in the spotlight, with Queensland Council of Civil Liberties vice president Terry O’Gorman saying the watchdog was overdue for a shake-up.

He also said that 20 years on from the Fitzgerald Inquiry a fresh corruption Royal Commission was not a big ask.

Whether or not corruption has taken hold of government in this state is something only a broad independent inquiry could hope to determine.

What is certain though is that the arrogance of a government now in office for much of the past two decades has provided fertile ground for it to take root.

The seamless transfer of senior bureaucrats and former cabinet ministers from government to the boardrooms of companies it deals with, its willingness to create structures that allow its function to be exempt from Freedom of Information law and the open door access that development companies hold to the corridors of power all speak to that arrogance and created opportunity.

Freedom Of Information lawyer Peter Timmins said last week that “in its first Right to Information Act decision, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal found the Information Commissioner erred in law in deciding that City North Infrastructure Pty Ltd, a Special Purpose Vehicle established by the government to assist in the delivery of infrastructure projects, including the Airport Link, was a public authority and subject to the Act”.

Mr Timmins said the decision meant that any such company established by the Queensland Government solely under the Corporations Act, was not subject to the RTI Act. Mr Timmins contends this raises a policy question concerning the extent to which government bodies created in a similar way should be subject to different levels of accountability and transparency than others.

Locally, any thinking person must question the government’s farcical justifications for taking planning control from council after a request from Stockland for it to do so and its claim that it’s fast-tracking of approvals would deliver more affordable housing.

Member for Nicklin Peter Wellington aims to have the government’s actions debated in the finally sitting of parliament for 2010.

He, like LGAQ CEO Greg Hallam, wants the Caloundra South decision overturned. And they want the government to put on the parliamentary record the full detail and justification for its actions.

The government must – before the close of business for 2010 – debate Mr Wellington’s motion to overturn the decision.

Failure to do so would further enhance perceptions that there is something fundamentally not right about the way this government does business.

As for a Royal Commission? The state deserves one, but won’t get one from this government little more than 12 months out from new elections.

Reader poll

Does Queensland need a corruption inquiry?

This poll ended on 31 August 2011.

Yes. - 83%

No. - 16%

This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only the opinions of those who chose to participate.